Armor repairing armor

[thebleakaffinity]

I've seen this tactic used on Mashtuur and other maps, where one squad will come into possession of two tanks and will place them side by side, constantly repairing one another. It's near impossible to take them down, since it repairs faster than AT can reload, mass AT fire is very difficult to coordinate, and any Spec Ops player trying to get C4 on them will be shot down rather quickly. It's quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've encountered in the game, and to me is just as much an exploitation of the in game physics as bunny-hopping, jet insertions and other things that aren't allowed on this server. Those other tactics I mentioned are frowned upon because they're unrealistic and plain annoying, and I don't see this as being any different. I'm not saying it should be banned outright (though it should be considered), I'm just curious as to what other people here think about this tactic.

[TychoCelchuuu]

"...mass AT fire is very difficult to coordinate..."

There's your problem. If your squad leader can't say "Everyone spawn AT. Okay, when I fire my missile, everyone fire theirs" then you don't deserve to take down a tank. It's not like you need a degree in Psychology to tell everyone to shoot at something when you say "go."

[thebleakaffinity]

Even getting past that reason though, it's not particularly hard to take down a bunny hopper, yet that's still not allowed. That part of my post was more a minor point. I'm more looking at the principle of the whole thing, and Tactical Gamer is pretty much all about principles.

[asch]

The Tactical Mod will be correcting thin in the .6 release coming out soon. Make sure to check it out.

[TychoCelchuuu]

If it's the spirit of the thing you're worried about, I can see where you're coming from, but I don't really agree. Nobody gets mad I, as a medic, chill in a Humvee, healing all my nearby teammates, or if I do the same thing as support and supply them with unlimited grenades. It's the same sort of thing with armor repairing armor. You're applying the "unrealistic" modifier waaay to harshly. Nobody complains it's unrealistic to revive someone with shock paddles or to turn a Chinese flag into a spawn point for USMC troopers just by standing around: they're basic game mechanics. Armor repairing armor is basically all an engineer is good for when it comes to shooting people, and it's one of the fundamental gameplay mechanics (heh, mechanics. No pun intended) in BF2.

[Delta_Swift]

If you look up Armor Repairing Armor on google.com, the following will be your first hit:

"Kilrogg & Robocop: A Love Story"

Those two have made might life hell on more than once occasion (Mashturr). The first time they only had one tank, but constantly retreated so that Robocop could repair. (Just a side note: just because Robo is an engineer doesn't mean he can't kill you...he's nasty with that shotgun...he's also your daddy...mine too) Eventually, either they got smarter or we got stupider and they stole our tank and both went engineer. At this point they were rediculous.

Despite being absolutely dominated, I don't mind it. I still have a way to defend against it. It just takes some good squad leading and coordination. On some maps, more than one piece of armor is available per team. However, on Mashtuur it was our own damn fault for leaving the armor unguarded at Power Plant.

[MrPaladin-TPF-]

I dont mind armour repairing armour.. mostly because as with any tactic there is a counter to it...

as ya said it takes good teamwork, but its not impossible...

what gets nasty is when theres 2 tanks, a supply crate, engineeers relairing them and medics in the tanks healing the engineers...

*shudders*

all in all I was not to fond of the 'ambulance' ability they decided to add in BF2... its one of the things that made the blackhawks dominate early games...

[Arf]

Beyond squad vs. squad an armor column is very beatable. You can get artillery, reinforcements, air strikes (multiple ways to get these), etc. If they've got their armor concentrated at one location maybe it would be a better decision to play Alamo while the rest of your team takes advantage of their weakness elsewhere.

I think there has to be times in the game when a squad will loose. There isn't a point in having 24 other teammates and a CO if your squad can handle everything alone.

[Santa]

Its unrealistic, but as long as theres an effective counter to it, im happy.

First, as has been mentioned, the SL can have everyone spawn on him as AT and hit one target all at once. As long as everyone communicates and isnt trigger happy, it works.

Second, get a fast buggy and get behind them. Hopefully the rest of the squad has their attention, and the dude in the buggy can place C4 on em.

[Wulfyn]

I agree with the sentiments here. Joint repairing is highly effective against unco-ordinated enemy firepower. The way to beat it is to apply a killable amount of damage to one of the vehicles in a short space of time (a couple seconds). In a way this is no difference to a tank sitting in front of a supply crate and using that to get repairs. The area effect that these support classes give is fairly intrinsic to the gameplay, as unrealistic as it may be.

Overall however I see the main effect as being that of 2 guys working as a team vs several guys not working as a team. 3 AT hits will take one of the tanks out if placed correctly and fired near-simultaneously.

[Strag]

I always enjoy some armor-on-armor action. Got any good tapes?

[Kilrogg]

God that round was awesome . This tactic is only really effective on Mashtuur and to a lesser extent on Karkand (and it only works with 2 tanks imo, so would only work for USMC).

The particular game you're talking about with me/robo owning everyone was MEC's own fault. I first ninja'd the tank from power plant right under the nose of a full squad and drove off before they could react but the tank got destroyed about halfway thru the map. I just hopped in Robo's tank and he drove to the powerplant again and surprise surprise there was only 2 guys there, which we quickly killed and got the tank again.

Then near the end of the map we both got blown up and I picked up a jeep at the South Gas Station (read: the other side of the map...) and drove to the power plant again, which was completely empty and had a free tank sitting there since a good 30-45 seconds. It's not like you didn't see the tank die, I'm sure your entire team had a sigh of relief when they saw us die, but why didn't they realize they should perhaps get the tank before me? (which is rather easy when you can spawn there).

I think it's a valid tactic as it only works in very few maps and the engineer class is completely useless if you don't allow that tactic. Personally I think stealing vehicles (non-UCB of course) takes great stealth/infiltration skills and it should be rewarded. You have enough tools such as UAVs, Scans and CO spotting to make sure your base is secure, if someone succeeds in infiltrating it and stealing a vehicle and most importantly getting out of there alive they should totally be allowed to group with an other engi/armor and be a major threat that requires coordination and effort to counter.

That being said, 2 AT rockets to the front chains (or whatever they're called, the wheels) of a tank will put it on fire or kill it, I don't remember exactly. Sneaking in behind a tank with c4 isn't that hard either, you can go the stealth way or just get a fast vehicle and drive in behind them, get out, put some c4 (tanks can't do anything about people right next to them) and blow them up, after getting out of range of your own c4. Over half the time I die in a tank it's from a TG member suicide C4ing me, you don't deserve to wear the TG tag if you do this imo.

[icky]

Originally Posted by Strag

I always enjoy some armor-on-armor action. Got any good tapes?

ROFL.

One point I didn't see made about armor is that they are most vulnerable when in motion. Don't send waves of people at entrenched armor unless you MUST. Lay a trap and move everyone elsewhere. That tank really is useless if you don't give it targets, and if you have multiple pieces of armor repairing and defending a flag, you can always choose to let them stay at it and just take control of the rest of the map.

[Kilrogg]

Yeah really. On that Mashtuur round with Robo, we got that many kills because people kept throwing themselves at us instead of moving to the other flags. If the last 14 attempts to shoot the tank down by yourself resulted in a death, chances are the 15th won't be anymore successful...

[TychoCelchuuu]

Maybe the 15th time you'll get a SUPER ROCKET that goes STRAIGHT THROUGH the tank's armor and hits the driver.